Apocalypse NYC?!

I woke up to this weather report:

I'll take this rain over that option...

Some NYC Photos

Here are some photos around the city from the past few weeks. The first is an Empire State building lamppost stand:

This is the top of a pier piling @ sunset:

Looking down @ a table:

Dog Free Lawn fail:

From Ft. Lee:

A great bench near the Intrepid:

And a logo for handicapped horses:

Sun setting under the GWB:

A New York Short

The YouTube description:

An inventive look at life in the city of opportunity, told by many people through one voice.

Mapping Swine Flu in NY

I centered this on NY, but you may have to zoom in or look around for just the incidients in the city.

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

I wonder why there haven't been any in Maimi, or FL generally...my guess is that's going to be the next area hit.  I don't mean to add to the hysteria of this new disease (which will probably turn out like the other's of late), I'm just expressing my apprecaition for this neat map.  

Post Apocalyptic NYC?!

Here's a scary image that captures my apprecation of all things post-apocalyptic and my love of NYC:

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it definitely makes a point.

  From Treehugger via here.    

Third Avenue El

Enjoy this slice of a bygone life.  It's a video of the old Third Avenue El train that captures the experinece of riding the old elevated train, as well as life in NY in mid-century: 

To find out more, check out the Wikipedia ariticle, which includes this relevant bit of information:

"...the Third Avenue El, which was intended to stay in use until the Second Avenue Subway was built to replace it. However, government bureaucracy and pressure from private developers, eager to redevelop Third Avenue, forced the closure of the El prematurely with no adequate subway replacement, leaving residents on the East Side of Manhattan with the overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line as the only subway east of Fifth Avenue."

 I wonder if they would have been so eager to demolish it if they had known it would take so many years to start the Second Avenue Subway...

Update: Art in the Streets

I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but Curbed commented on some of the street art from the last post.  Curbed was tipped off by Vanishing New York, who seems to think the "tape skyline" was created by Aakash Nihalani. 

 Follow the links for an interesting story about a buidling closed because of a fire, reborn through spontaneous artistic expression, and then slated for demolation to make way for a new building.  

Art in the Streets

Here's some photos I took of street art from around the city over the past few weeks:

That was from this truck:




This next one I've been watching grow over the past few months, starting w/just the red painted over the bricks, then successive taggings, a shiny gold portrait, and most recently, a tape skyline appeared:


Art as its own organic growth.

This last one might better classified as window art:



10 Points to anyone who knows where any of these were taken (hint: all between 15th and Houston).

Obama Beats McCain in Google Searches

I was curious what Google had to say about the two presidential candidates. Here's a comparison of their search frequency over the past 30 days:




See for yourself. Anyone think this is a predictor of future election results? Maybe I'll check out Obama v. Hillary in the months leading up to his party win...

A Governors Island Photographer

I found this here:

Sweet Ride

Here's a great bike I see occasionally parked on 5th Ave. Every time I see it, it makes me want to go for a ride:

Today Near Union Square

Here's a shot I took today on 14th Street:


Poor guy, couldn't even afford pants, or an upper body. Great socks though...

United States of Cement

This is a portrait of America, both depressing and beautiful, by Ben Fry. The map is composed of only streets, without any other markings. Geographical features are evident from the absence of roads, where there's water or mountains, while development is evident in the darker areas where there are more roads. It's worth a trip to the site for a closer look.

When Grand Central Was Younger - New York Times

Click here to view an interesting article and slide show about "When Grand Central Was Younger" in the New York Times

Something New and a New York-Centric World Map

I'm trying something new. This is a program I found through LifeHacker that lets you share websites and add your own comments to them. The comments appear in yellow.

Here's what I wanted to share:

Click here to view an annotation of radicalcartography

If you don't want to click through, here's what you'd find:



It's like a modern extension of Saul Steinberg's New Yorker cover:

Bike Ride to the Battery

On Friday I took my usual bike ride down to Battery Park and back. I almost rode north instead, but the sun glinting on the Hudson was too much to pass up.

You can track my progress HERE

I usually just follow the path along the river, but on this ride I followed a curving hill (mountain) at 125th up to Grant's Tomb. It was steep, but worth it for the long glide down to 96th, where I again met up with the path.

This detour was not the highlight of the trip, though, as that wouldn't come until I almost turned back for home. Just as I reached the parking lot near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, I almost collided with a wild turkey! Here's a photo:




I had heard about him from Curbed, but never expected to see the guy. He looked disheveled, but in good spirits. He found some peanuts to snack on, as he's doing in the above photo. I wonder how he got into the city...

New York in the Spring

Hi, HERE's a fitting article about spring in New York City from the Times.

The best line:

As befits New York, spring is theater. In other places where troupes of the fit and the comely can also be found, like Miami, Los Angeles and Hawaii, the curtain rarely rises because it hardly ever falls. There, it is always butterfly weather. But in New York, the curtain has drama because the cocoon is never far away.

Remember "Back in Action"?

Woah, I remember this thing. It's been months, since July I think...I have lots to say, but I'm not going to say it. Instead, watch this:

Manhatta

What do you have to say about it?

Back in Action

It’s been five months, but I’ve returned. That means I’ve been away for longer than the blog has been active…which means I’m probably just writing to myself, as the few people who knew about YU Blog?! have likely stopped checking for updates by now. I can’t even validate the claim of “A Yeshiva University Student Blog-Bringing Wisdom to the Web”, as I’ve graduated, and I’m thus no longer a Yeshiva University student.

Then again, half of this blog’s active life took place after I stopped taking classes at YU. And I still work at YU, which gives me some claim to write the YU Blog?! Maybe now the question mark and exclamation mark make more sense. When people hear I write a YU blog, they’ll respond with, “You write the YU Blog?!”

Most of those who read this will know why I’ve been gone for so long. For those of you who don’t, check back after a few posts. A lot’s happened in since March and I’m still getting my feet under me. Once YU Blog?! is up and fully running, I’ll tell you all the harrowing tale.

For now I’ll say I’ve moved to the other side of the Heights, where I’ve found a piece of real New York City living. I’ve enjoyed the city ever since I moved here, but never as much as I have for the past few months. Across the street from the A train, respectable bars with live music on the weekends, organic grocery stores and gourmet wine shops all within walking distance. I never minded living on the YU side, until I moved out and realized what I was missing.

I’ve also made another great discovery-my bike. I lived with that thing under my dorm room bed for the first two years of college. I would make it out a few times a year, but I never utilized it as a valid means of transportation. Now it takes me 20 minutes to get to Central Park. It takes less than an hour to get to Battery Park. The island has shrunk significantly.

I’ll write more about my bike some other time, there’s just too much to say to fit in this post. For now, I just wanted everybody (nobody?) to know I’m still here.

Let me know if any of you are still out there.

The Noble Coffee that Was

I’ve been debating whether or not to tell this story, but I’ve decided its something I must share.

After a struggle trying to decide what to have for dinner the other night, I settled on frozen steak from the kosher store on Amsterdam.  As I ate this perfect meal of beef and potatoes, I got a call from the team.  They wanted to go to the Village.

As it neared time for the shuttle, I stopped by the library for warmth.  I noticed the random café there was open, so I went to buy a coffee.  The lady told me regular coffee cost a dollar, whereas flavored cost $1.10.  From behind the cashier, she could not see the two urns, so I asked her how she knew what people were buying.  She said she only knew what they told her…

After pouring myself a regular cup and filing it with two packs of sugar and some whole milk (instead of the skim, which was also available), I moved the perilously full cup to the register.  My phone rang at the same time I reached for my wallet, so I used each hand to remove them both from my pockets.  Somehow, in the chaos, the coffee cup exploded.

  Light brown coffee spilled over the counter, into the napkin dispenser, under the register.  A small coffee lake formed at my feet.   All in a matter of seconds.

As I rushed to help the lady clean up the mess, I worried about missing the shuttle.  Subways alone are boring.  We worked together to contain the flood and I sheepishly asked her for a free refill, to which she agreed.  

My new cup in hand, I boarded the shuttle and sat down to enjoy my hard earned drink.  As I took my first sip, I smelled the milk and realized I had eaten meat not 45 minutes before.  I suddenly knew why the first cup committed suicide.  It was to save me from eating milk after meat.  

I didn’t want to sit with a full cup of coffee the whole way down to Stern, so I stood up and asked the full shuttle if anyone wanted some coffee.  A girl in the back asked if it was caffeinated, which I thought was kind of a dumb question.  “Very,” I said, and turned around to offer the drink to the driver.  He looked at me as if I was offering him a bribe or something, so I changed my offer to, “Would you at least throw it out.”

He did, and my ride down was uneventful.  The events to follow have their own tale to tell.  But when I think back on that night, I can’t help but to reflect on that poor cup that gave its life to better my own.